Psychoacoustics—the fine science of fooling the human ear by manipulating audio—can deliver great results. Personally, I prefer it in small doses to augment bass and a sense of space, rather than flat out trying to simulate a multi-channel surround set-up, as does the Dolby Virtual Speaker found in Razer’s Leviathan soundbar/subwoofer combo. As with faux anything, it’s just never quite as good.

That said, Razer’s Leviathan does it as well as anything I’ve heard. and it’s far less of a hassle to set up than the real deal.

Speakers and sound

The sound-bar half of the Leviathan features a pair of 2.5-inch mid-range drivers and two 0.74-inch tweeters inside its angled cabinet (you can see an exploded view, below). The main speaker can fit in front of your computer monitor or big-screen TV, or it can be hung on the wall below your display. A mid-sized powered subwoofer is intended to sit on the floor and, due to the non-directional nature of very low-frequency effects, can go just about anywhere in your room.

As Valve continues to fiddle with Steam OS, the key cog in the Steam Machine initiative it announced way at CES back in 2014, system builders have been taking matters into their own hands. We've seen various small form-factor gaming PCs that boot directly into Steam’s Big Picture mode, a 10-foot user interface designed for big-screen TVs. Many of the options have just been smaller versions of big desktops, while others look more like Xbox One or PlayStation 4 video-game consoles.

Origin PC is taking a whole different approach with its new Omega line, a new generation of home-theater PCs we first spied at CES 2015. Unlike Origin’s own Chronos line and the majority of SFF gaming PCs currently available, the Omega is designed specifically for living-room deployments, with a choice of legitimate HTPC enclosures that will look right at home in an A/V rack. These are understated square and rectangular cases that forgo the usual LED light show, although Origin does offer the option of custom airbrushed paint in any design or color.

The Legend of Zelda, the popular fantasy-themed video game published by Nintendo, is said to be coming to Netflix as a live-action series.

Netflix is developing the series apparently in the early stages, as the streaming media company is still seeking a writer, according a report Friday in the Wall Street Journal citing an unnamed source. The source described the show as like the popular fantasy series “Game of Thrones,” but for a family audience, according to the report.

Netflix is working closely with Nintendo to develop the series, but given the early stage of development, it’s possible the show may not get off the ground, the report said.

]]>http://www.techhive.com/article/2881372/netflix-said-to-be-developing-liveaction-legend-of-zelda-series.html#tk.rss_softwaregames
Streaming MediaGamesSamsung smart TVs will soon be able to play PlayStation games without a PlayStationWed, 24 Dec 2014 06:31:00 -0800Ian PaulIan Paul

Sony is getting serious about bringing PlayStation-powered gaming to HDTVs regardless of whether or not you actually have a PlayStation—and not just Sony-made HDTVs, either. Sony and Samsung recently announced that the PlayStation Now game streaming service will land on select Samsung smart TVs in early 2015 in the U.S. and Canada.

There's no word on whether you'll need a 2015 Samsung TV or if earlier models will work with the new service. Samsung should provide more details in January when the company demonstrates PlayStation Now running on its TVs during the Consumer Electronics Show.

The sound card is pretty much dead, but the high-end PC audio market is thriving. Most of the action is in USB DACs coupled with headphone amps, and Creative’s new Sound Blaster X7 can fill that role. But this device can do much more, and its application isn’t limited to personal computers. This Sound Blaster can also be used with gaming consoles, smartphones, tablets, DVD players… just about anything with an audio input or output.

The Sound Blaster X7 an affordable audio powerhouse with just two intertwined shortcomings: There’s no HDMI in or out, so there’s no support for high-resolution movie soundtracks on Blu-ray discs.

The SB X7 has an integrated Texas Instruments TPA3116D2 Class D digital amplifier that can drive a pair of either 4- or 8-ohm speakers. Flip a switch on the back panel to correspond to the speakers you’re connecting to it. Gold-plated binding posts support bare-wire, spade, or banana-plug connections.

When I was a kid, my brother and I played with our Lego bricks every Saturday and Sunday morning, from whenever ridiculously early time he would wake me until eventually we’d get in a fight and accidentally wake up our parents. I can still picture the giant roofless mansions we’d construct, homes for our Lego people, garages for their flying cars, and pool houses and guest houses and treehouses—only the finest in plastic brick real estate.

Lego Fusion Town Master combines the fun of designing your own Lego buildings with the clever cuteness of the Lego videogame series. The set comes with a “fusion plate,” upon which you construct the facade of a building with the included bricks. Then using the camera on an iOS or Android phone or tablet, you capture an image of the facade, and little Lego construction workers spring into action, fleshing it out as a 3D building in your little Lego town.

Nvidia’s Shield Tablet is easily the fastest Android tablet you can get, with a host of really great features for entertainment enthusiasts. But abbreviated battery life, a lackluster display, and considerable heft makes it less appealing outside of its target audience of gamers.

Nvida intends the Shield Tablet to show off its new Tegra K1 chip, which marries four high-power 2.2GHz ARM Cortex 15 CPUs with one low-power battery-saver core. And based on our test results, it does precisely that: The Shield Tablet turned in a score of 4876 in the Vellamo Chrome benchmark and 2504 in the Vellamo multi-core benchmark. The GeekBench multi-core score is 3539, the single-core score is 1112. 3DMark’s Ice Storm Unlimited test produced a score of 30,522. That is not a typo—it’s really that fast. More important, it feels fast, too: No matter what you’re doing, the tablet responds with instant fluidity.

As Valve continues to fiddle with Steam OS, the key cog in the Steam Machine initiative it announced way at CES back in 2014, system builders have been taking matters into their own hands. We've seen various small form-factor gaming PCs that boot directly into Steam’s Big Picture mode, a 10-foot user interface designed for big-screen TVs. Many of the options have just been smaller versions of big desktops, while others look more like Xbox One or PlayStation 4 video-game consoles.

Origin PC is taking a whole different approach with its new Omega line, a new generation of home-theater PCs we first spied at CES 2015. Unlike Origin’s own Chronos line and the majority of SFF gaming PCs currently available, the Omega is designed specifically for living-room deployments, with a choice of legitimate HTPC enclosures that will look right at home in an A/V rack. These are understated square and rectangular cases that forgo the usual LED light show, although Origin does offer the option of custom airbrushed paint in any design or color.

The Legend of Zelda, the popular fantasy-themed video game published by Nintendo, is said to be coming to Netflix as a live-action series.

Netflix is developing the series apparently in the early stages, as the streaming media company is still seeking a writer, according a report Friday in the Wall Street Journal citing an unnamed source. The source described the show as like the popular fantasy series “Game of Thrones,” but for a family audience, according to the report.

Netflix is working closely with Nintendo to develop the series, but given the early stage of development, it’s possible the show may not get off the ground, the report said.

]]>http://www.techhive.com/article/2881372/netflix-said-to-be-developing-liveaction-legend-of-zelda-series.html#tk.rss_softwaregames
Streaming MediaGamesSamsung smart TVs will soon be able to play PlayStation games without a PlayStationWed, 24 Dec 2014 06:31:00 -0800Ian PaulIan Paul

Sony is getting serious about bringing PlayStation-powered gaming to HDTVs regardless of whether or not you actually have a PlayStation—and not just Sony-made HDTVs, either. Sony and Samsung recently announced that the PlayStation Now game streaming service will land on select Samsung smart TVs in early 2015 in the U.S. and Canada.

There's no word on whether you'll need a 2015 Samsung TV or if earlier models will work with the new service. Samsung should provide more details in January when the company demonstrates PlayStation Now running on its TVs during the Consumer Electronics Show.

The Xbox One is strong video-game platform, and it's a conduit to all sorts of fabulous online entertainment for those looking to cut the cord. But did you know you can also use Microsoft's gaming console to control your cable- or satellite-TV set-top box using voice and gesture commands? Allow me to show you how.

Xbox in the middle

The Xbox One has an HDMI output. No surprise, right? So does every other device you plug into your TV. But the Xbox One also has an HDMI input. Unplug the HDMI cable going from your cable- or satellite-TV set-top to your TV (or A/V receiver, as the case may be) and plug it into the HDMI input on your Xbox One.

The sound card is pretty much dead, but the high-end PC audio market is thriving. Most of the action is in USB DACs coupled with headphone amps, and Creative’s new Sound Blaster X7 can fill that role. But this device can do much more, and its application isn’t limited to personal computers. This Sound Blaster can also be used with gaming consoles, smartphones, tablets, DVD players… just about anything with an audio input or output.

The Sound Blaster X7 an affordable audio powerhouse with just two intertwined shortcomings: There’s no HDMI in or out, so there’s no support for high-resolution movie soundtracks on Blu-ray discs.

The SB X7 has an integrated Texas Instruments TPA3116D2 Class D digital amplifier that can drive a pair of either 4- or 8-ohm speakers. Flip a switch on the back panel to correspond to the speakers you’re connecting to it. Gold-plated binding posts support bare-wire, spade, or banana-plug connections.

]]>http://www.techhive.com/article/2851524/sound-blaster-x7-review-audiophile-performance-without-the-audiophile-price.html#tk.rss_softwaregames
Home AudioHeadsetsGamesAmazon triples the number of games and apps available for its Fire TV media streamerFri, 24 Oct 2014 11:07:00 -0700Michael BrownMichael Brown

Amazon wants investors to forget all about yesterday’s disappointing earnings announcement and its lowered sales guidance for the 2014 holiday season. The company released two bits of more positive news this morning: The number of games and apps available for its $99 Fire TV media-streaming device has tripled since its launch in April, and all 10 episodes of its original series Alpha House (starring John Goodman) are now available on its Amazon Prime Instant Video service.

Amazon declined to reveal how many Fire TVs it has sold (the company doesn’t publish unit sales for any of its products, according to a company spokesperson), but it likely has a ways to go before it catches up with Roku (10 million units sold since 2008) or Apple (the company recently claimed an installed base of 20 million Apple TV devices).

Adventure Time is easily one of the weirdest, most creative things on television today, and it's also the rare show that means so much to kids and adults alike—and sometimes for different reasons altogether. The cartoon is alternately silly and sentimental, absurdist and still surprisingly relatable. It's a curious concoction, to be sure, but a rather wonderful one overall.

Just as the bite-sized episodes seem to flow out constantly, Cartoon Network has been launching games and apps for iOS and Android like mad—games especially, with a new one seemingly popping up every few weeks. Looking for ways to stoke your Adventure Time enthusiasm on the go? Here are six entertaining apps that will do just that.

These days, keeping up with games can be a full-time job. So how do you separate the signal from the noise, the wheat from the chaff, the Temple Runs from the Temple Jumps? Allow us to help by regularly selecting a game You Should Play.

If you like Tetris, platformers, endless runners, and multi-tasking, I have the perfect game for you.

Hazumino is a brilliant—and totally bizarre—mash-up of everything that is awesome. It's a platformer à la Super Mario. It's an endless runner à la Robot Unicorn Attack. It's a block-stacking game à la Tetris. And it's all of these things at the same time.

The Xbox One is strong video-game platform, and it's a conduit to all sorts of fabulous online entertainment for those looking to cut the cord. But did you know you can also use Microsoft's gaming console to control your cable- or satellite-TV set-top box using voice and gesture commands? Allow me to show you how.

Xbox in the middle

The Xbox One has an HDMI output. No surprise, right? So does every other device you plug into your TV. But the Xbox One also has an HDMI input. Unplug the HDMI cable going from your cable- or satellite-TV set-top to your TV (or A/V receiver, as the case may be) and plug it into the HDMI input on your Xbox One.